1 Day Workshop at Gap Miners

A 1-day workshop on 'The Champion's Mindset' for the newcomers at Gap Miners a couple of days ago. I ran them through the course material of what a champion is, what a champion needs to work on, what a champion works for, how he goes about planning it, how he prepares and how he sustains it. It was heavy duty stuff as it requires one to take a close look at one's own pluses and gaps, and one that needs a certain amount of concentration. Some coped better than the others. However, as I always feel, though the workshop does shake you up a bit, it also opens up certain thought processes which can be explored when the participant is ready. Some take it right away, some after a week and perhaps some after years. The articulation and visualization of their dreams, the acknowledgement of their strengths, the way forward, all make for stuff that can come in use later.

But I could see one serious gap which they all took for granted - one which I should have them explore a bit more. The gap between their current state of affairs and their desired goal was something they brushed past without understanding the importance of that gap. A simple example could be this - I want to play professional golf - but I have never ever been to a golf course yet and am showing no sign of going there as well. Or I want to direct films but I have not made a short film yet or even simpler, have not written a script or a story idea yet. Or I want to start a business but have no desire to understand how the business is being run in this office. It is this step where one has to start acting upon to get anywhere o the path of their dream.

It opens up an interesting course of action for me in the next few sessions. Really interesting.   

Dave Barry's Only Travel guide You'll Ever Need - Dave Barry

This is a book I hugely hugely recommend. It made me laugh so much that I felt I would die - there are parts where I had to take long breaks before I could get started again. It's just so stupidly funny. The entire book continues in much the same vein as the title - pompous, irreverent and full of useless information. But then you need to like the Dave Barry kind of humour which is something like 'France's National Underwear Changing Day is March 12'. I love him to death.

The book has helpful maps which will lead you nowhere. I also love his carefully drawn tables, line drawings and so on in his earnest manner to help us. But what I like the most is his footnotes which are incredibly funny and for the first time in my life I am actually looking forward to reading footnotes in my life. Let me get the first one. Footnote for this sentence 'Singapore is in an entirely different continent' is this - 'possibly Africa'.  This is one of the funniest books I have ever read!

Dave Barry makes fun of every type, person, country, thing and spares no one and all I did was laugh so much till I felt my body behaving in a manner that I was not used to - eyes reduced to slits, tears streaming down, uncontrollable laughter that others can only shake their heads at. Ah god, thank you so much for giving this man this wonderful gift. But there I must also thank Vinod for introducing me to Dave Barry in a big manner, giving me several of his books, and keeping the tradition of laughing helplessly alive. (Truly enough, the New York Daily News review on the blurb goes - Read it and die laughing. You know, you just could.)

Gangs of Wasseypur - Movie Review

Finally saw the much-acclaimed Anurag Kashyap movie 'Gangs of Wasseypur'. It is entertaining and interesting and left me feeling something I cannot say what. It's not a feeling of awe, nor of newness, nor of being completely entertained - its actually a feeling of having seen or known of this before. Maybe my short stint in Dhanbad in the early 90s, a period when Suryadeo Singh, the coal mafia don actually died (I was in Dhanbad that same day), got some deja vu acting up. 

Or have I become immune to the mafia stories? The movie is undoubtedly well-made with authentic characters and fine performances, great locales and a wonderful story, but why am I feeling rather low, or worse, apathetic. I must figure that out. Maybe its just my mood. But the idea of a revenge story set in the coal mines of Dhanbad (or Wasseypur), of a bandit, of a butcher mafia, of a son seeking revenge against his father's murder, is nice. Perhaps the motives were not strong enough for me - the son was too young when his father ( a goon himself) is killed. The son is no nobleman himself. How he manages to suppress the strong Qureshi clan by a few bombs and just two supporters is another thread that did not convince me. But I do like Anurag Kashyap's work and must say that it's a nice and a refreshing change from the flogged-to-death Mumbai mafia stories. Somehow the badness of these goons is not entertaining anymore, nor are they seeming like heroes. It's all rather pointless.

Do I recommend it? Yes, if you like gang wars, butchers, revenge stories. Manjor Bajpai is good and Nawazuddin Siddiqui brings his Michael Corleone like brooding presence forcefully. I was searching for how the Sardar Khan character lives up to his 'Keh ke loonga' line. To me he did not, really. He does bleed the mafia don but just about.

Anjali - Do The Things You Don't Like, First

Anjali came home today from school and after her usual banter about her friends and their antics, turned her attention to the 'lots of homework' she had today. The mood turned despondent for a second, but she strode into her room to get her bag.

As she returned with her bag she announced loudly, 'I don't like Maths'. That is a new one, I thought. 'There's too much work in Maths  - I have to write, 81, 82, 83. 84 and 85 three times each,' she explained.
I wondered what to do to make her like Maths again.

In a couple of moments she was down on the floor with her Maths book open in front of her, writing her 81s, 82s and 83s. As all was going well, I remained silent. After the work was done to satisfaction she looked at me and said 'Nanna, what I don't like I do it off first. That way it won't be there later.'

Ah, Anjali, how I wish I'd known that earlier. I would have got rid of much stuff that I don't like by now! But thanks - never too late to start.

The Hyderabad Literary Festival 2013

The 3rd edition of Hyderabad Literary Festival kicked off at the Maulana Azad Urdu University, Gachibowli, on the 18th of January 2013. The event got off to a high profile start with the Governor of Andhra Pradesh Shri E.S.L.Narasimhan inaugurating it. Several writers of national and international repute gathered on the new University campus, right next to the ring road, where the trees are all between three and five foot high. I was to be in conversation with popular novelist and writer Anita Nair, in the post lunch sleepy session on the first day.

The first thing that strikes you about the University is the total lack of shade (mainly owing to its newness). Hyderabad is rather warm already and this lack of shade makes all movement between buildings rather uncomfortable. The first people we met as we entered the HLF were two of the best - Krishna Shastry Devulapalli and his lovely wife Chitra - and life sped on to a nice, racy, fun, repartee and laughter mode after that. There's never a dull moment with Krishna around and we decided to find some place to get some chai.

We were directed to a canteen, a ten minute walk away, by Vijay Kumar, good friend and key person in the organization of the HLF. Vijay hurried off to deal with the many issues of running a Lit Fest while we sat in the canteen sipping chai, discussing books, authors, festivals, editors, publishers etc. At about 1 p.m. we walked along the sunny, stark, newly laid roads towards the VIP lounge for lunch. Met Rajeevan and Dilip D' Souza, who is always good fun. Spotted Sridala with Ranjit Hoskote. Anita and I headed back to the centre for our 2'O clock show but since most people were still at lunch and the program had got delayed a bit, we had to wait for a good half hour before the talk got on.

It was good to see Akshara Book Store marking its presence there. I love Akshara Book Store - Lakshmi hosted so many fine book launches and kept the book reading scene in Hyderabad vibrant for many years before the big chains came and commercialised the story. I do hope Lakshmi gets back to doing those events - Akshara always had a nice energy to it.

Back at the event, we discussed Anita's prolific writing (she had 14 books in 15 years of writing), how she manages to write so much, the quality of her writing, the range (short stories collection (Satyr of the Subway), novels (The Better Man, Ladies Coupe, Mistress, Lessons in Forgetting and Cut Like Wound), 4 Children's Books, Translation (Chemmeen), Screenplays, a Play, how she manages to easily slip into the dark sides of her characters, whether it was easier to write novels or screenplays, the process of writing, the discipline the goes into it, the way the publishing industry is progressing, new writing in English and so on. She read from her book 'Lessons In Forgetting' which has been made into an award winning English film with the same name, for which she wrote screenplay and dialogue as well. (The movie is scheduled for a release by PVR Cinemas in March 2013.) By now we were already pushing into other people's time and we had to wind up quickly after a few questions from the audience.

Anita spoke about how she is a full time writer, post her advertising days, and how she writes everyday with a lot of discipline which is why she gets much work done. She explained that writing is a process she really enjoys and looks forward to everyday - she loves going to her desk to write every day (she writes in long hand). On the quality of writing she said, she does not get started on the writing process unless she is clear about the idea, about getting the story moving from A to Z in a broad structure. She explained that she writes in scenes, a scene each day, which makes her novels visual. She spoke about how important it was to give oneself up to the character and not put oneself and one's own thoughts and limitations in the way. Anita said it was important to be honest to the process. When asked if there was a lot of honesty in Indian Writing in English, she said that there was perhaps not as much as she would like to see out there. Responding to a question on how long it might take us, as a society to accept ourselves and get honest with our repressed emotions such as love, sex, violence or anything else, she said it could take about a decade for our writing to get there. While on screenplays versus novels, she said each was a different medium, but she said she'd always prefer novels. She has her own dedicated set of readers and is more in control of the process, whereas with a screenplay a lot of external factors come into play, and it could change according to the director's vision. On her new novel 'Cut Like Wound' she said there were some queries to make it into a movie too. And so on and so forth. Writers Vanaja Banagiri, Krishna Sastry Devulapalli and a few others interacted with her before we ended the show. I'll probably try and get her interview in a separate Q and A form in another post.

I met Jayesh Ranjan, IAS Officer, and the earlier Secretary of Andhra Pradesh Tourism, who is just back from study leave. A major culture and sports buff and a wonderful person, he is one of the few who makes a positive difference wherever he goes. We also had artists and poets in Chandana Khan and Tejdeep Kaur Menon, senior IAS and IPS officers, who participated in the Festival too. With such people in the Government and people like Surya and Vijay, supported by a whole lot of well wishers including Shankar Melkote and the Little Theatre, the HLF is in good hands. However, I must say that the last version of HLF had more romance and more interaction primarily because the space at Taramati Baradari was contained in a smaller place. Of course its a bit out of the way but its very romantic too.

This edition had several writers and poets - Anita Nair, Vaiju Naravane, Rajeevan, Dileep Jhaveri, Satchidanandan, Ranjit Hoskote, Tabish Khair, Sridala, Vinod Mehta, Krishna Sastry Devulapalli and so many more. A good show once again by the HLF team. The Hyderabad Literary Festival is new and still evolving and I am sure it can only get bigger and better in years to come.

The Lance Armstrong Case - Closure

I do not have the patience to see the Lance Armstrong interview on the Oprah Winfrey show. Simply because I don't know if after a couple of months someone comes out with a few more spectacular findings that it was all a big setup and that everyone made millions out of his confessions. TV shows, books, lectures - gimme a break.

By the end of it all one thing is clear - whatever Lance Armstrong did, he was not alone. There is obviously a much bigger set up behind that. More people involved in the entire creation of the myth and the destruction of it. But by now who cares.I don't. They won, they lost.

But what intrigues me is this - if such a case took so long to discover and such a myth has been built tacitly, I wonder what part of the story is true. For me, just the fact that a cancer survivor (and what Armstrong describes in his book of his disease is horrifying enough) had the strength to come back to health was big enough to make him a champion in my eyes I am good enough with that story. That he won seven titles and excelled in a physically draining sport was the cherry.

But what this entire set up, I am talking o the system that made and broke this man, has done is this - I don't even know if the cancer story is true now.

If it is, Armstrong still remains a winner to me, for he, as a cancer survivor, pushed himself, ethically or unethically, to ride that tour. All cancer survivors can take heart form that. He did (unless he did not really participate in the Tour and someone else did) physically ride and ride. The Tour Organisers should have been sophisticated enough to detect these cases quickly enough and if he got away with whatever he did, the enforcers are more to blame than him. After all that is what the enforcers are for. But if the cancer story is fake, and if he has not the Tour, Armstrong will remain one of the biggest creations of this whole phenomenon of branding and marketing that we see all around us.

Am I shocked? No. Do I feel sad? No. Each to his own. Armstrong will find his own demons or his peace. So will all those who were with him and against him. For me the story is over. Now I'd rather spend my time looking for other stories - of real heroes - in a world where the distinction between reality and make-believe is slowly blurring.

Anjali - Visit to the Birla Planetarium

Anjali's wish to see the Birla Planetarium (and mine too) has been finally fulfilled. Shobhs, Anjali and I finally made it there, with Manasi in tow. The last time Anjali and Anu and I had gone to the planetarium the guard told us that anyone under 5 years was not allowed in the planetarium. The moment Anjali turned five, she reminded me of this new status she has achieved - she was now eligible to see the planetarium. And so we headed off.

Happy together - Manasi and Anjali

As we parked and were about to enter, a guard came running at top speed and told us that cameras were not allowed in the planetarium. Fair enough. Only wish they could tell us this before we get down and walk some distance. But what makes it rather funny is that everyone has such fine cameras on their phones that we don't need anything else - and phones are allowed inside!

Anjali and Manasi were in their own little world and were happily playing about. We had some time so we went to the science museum first which had many interactive science principles in action - optics, mechanics, electricity, illusion and so on - and the kids enjoyed themselves. The interactiveness was the key, and this was so unlike other places where we are normally used to Keep-Off-Else-There-Will-be-Penalties boards and and all that. Also one young volunteer came up and very gently showed all the experiments to Anjali and Manasi. They had much fun there.

Exploring some plants

Then we moved to the Dinosaurium which had one huge skeleton of a dinosaur found in Adilabad district and it is named after that area where it was found - Yemenapalli. After about ten minutes there we headed of to the museum of Modern Art which was a lovely exhibition of paintings from several artistes. I got a depressing view of the concrete jungle that our city had become from there. Not a patch of green anywhere.

The concrete jungle

And then we headed into the planetarium. The show which was to begin at 4 started at 430. We all sat around a giant telescope in seats that recline backwards so much that you are looking at the sky. We see a wonderful night sky. The stars and the constellations are explained but in a sort of a complicated manner and as it went on and on it got rather boring. Pretty little about the planets however, which I think was what Anjali was interested in. The sound kept going off all the time which was pretty bad - so bad that we could hardly catch the last 20 minutes at all. The kids were bored and frankly so was I and I was glad to get out finally. I heard one gentleman behind me commenting that the 'earlier' show was better which meant that they made some modifications which certainly are not working. I think if they keep it simple and explain our place in the Universe clearly it would be much better than explaining the rashis etc. I asked Anjali if she enjoyed the planetarium and she said it was 'boring'.

Posing in front of the Forbidden Lawns

 But she liked the science museum she said and playing on the forbidden lawns near the planetarium. 'One of those 'Get-Off, Get-Off' lawns.